Parliamentary Panel on Bt Cotton to skip Bhamb (Raja)

Published in 'The Hitavada' on March 2, 2012

Farmers threaten stir as panel on Bt Cotton skips Bhamb (Raja) 

■ By Kartik Lokhande
BHAMB (RAJA), Mar 1: SHRIDHAR Adey, Madhukar Pawar, and Babanrao Gawande all were sitting dejected in Bhagwant Mauli Devsthan Hall in the village.
Soon, their dejection turned into anger and they decided to launch an agitation on Friday against Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture’s decision to skip this village in Yavatmal district from its tour programme.
The 31-member Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture headed by senior MP Basudeb
Acharia had decided to visit Bhamb (Raja), Sonbardi, Maregaon, and Pandharkawda in Yavatmal district to collect opinion of farmers about Bt Cotton and its impact.
“This is unfortunate. Our misfortune continues to haunt us. We had high hopes from the committee. We thought that the committee will give us a patient hearing and listen to our woes and recommend some concrete solutions to the Government,” said Madhukar Pawar, an elderly figure
from the village. A host of other farmers from the village echoed Pawar’s sentiment. Young Shridhar Adey announced that the villagers will stage rasta roko on Friday if the committee did not visit the village. 

The committee is studying the complex issue of genetically modified crops in India against the backdrop of Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) Bill. When contacted, Basudeb Acharia told ‘The Hitavada’ over telephone that the plan to visit Bhamb (Raja) had been dropped. “However, we will visit Pandharkawda on Friday and will talk to farmers there,” he said.
Yavatmal District Collector Shrawan Hardikar also confirmed the development, but pleaded ignorance about the reason behind dropping Bhamb (Raja) and other villages from the programme of the panel. “Still, if time permits, the committee will visit Maregaon,” he added.

Interestingly, the village has a lot to offer as far as farmers’ experience with Bt Cotton is concerned. The villagers do not know about BRAI Bill but they surely know about Bt Cotton and how it has affected their lives. As against the popular perception that the village has not seen even a single suicide, there are at least 13 suicides of farmers and four of them have been termed as ‘eligible for aid’ by the Government.

“We have been left to suffer so far and if such an attitude of the Government, administration, and the Parliamentary panel continues, we will continue to suffer. Probably, that is our destiny,” said a deeply dejected Secretary of Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) Mohan Jadhav. 

No suicide? Think again!

BHAMB (Raja) is a classic example of misleading portrayal by agribiotech companies. During the
media tour arranged by Mahyco-Monsanto Biotech last year, the mediapersons were told that the
village had not seen a suicide and Bt Cotton had such a magical effect that farmers had shut doors on private moneylenders. However, ground reality is different. 

When ‘The Hitavada’ visited the village a day before the visit of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, villagers provided a list of at least 13 farmers who had ended their lives as they were fed up of indebtedness and various socio-economic problems arising out of that. According to villagers, these 13 farmers included Kunjaram Pohankar, Ganesh Mate, Prakash Bagde, Madhukar Bagde, Shankar Kale, Ambadas Mane, Sadashiv Bhoyar, Sakharam Meshram,
Bhagwan Adey, Amarsingh Pawar, Vijay Tijare, Lobha Rathod, and Vijay Adey. Interestingly, even the Government ‘recognised’ four of these suicides as genuine by extending them aid ‘as per the norms’. The four farmers whose suicides the Government found ‘eligible for aid’ included Kunjaram Pohankar, Ganesh Mate, Madhukar Bagde, and Ambadas Mane.